BRASIL is a photobook project that is the result of eight years of photographing culture, landscape, architecture and the visual magic I found in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Salvador de Bahia. Made on analog film, the photographs are personal portraits that illuminate a fluid, syncopated, and complex contemporary Brazil, seen through the lens of my Rolleiflex camera.

I first traveled to Brazil to shoot stills for a documentary film on Capoeira in Salvador de Bahia. Moved by the energy of the African diaspora in Bahia, I was compelled to return to different regions of Brazil to shoot in both urban and rural locations. I lived in Rio de Janeiro and worked obsessively: photographing on back streets, on the beaches at night, and was especially drawn to the striking modernist architecture in Rio and Sao Paulo. A three-month artist residency at the Sacatar Foundation on the island of Itaparica in Bahia was a turning point in my life and work. I discovered that the work was expanding and would eventually take the form of a book.

THE WORK

After photographing for eight years in Brazil, the work is tightly edited and is ready to publish. Shot entirely on film with my Rolleiflex medium format camera, the silver prints made in the darkroom are already scanned, and the layout and design nearly complete. Selections of this work from Brazil have been exhibited at the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek; the Goethe Center in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; the Bursa PhotoFestival, Turkey; Galerie Photo4, Paris, and Galeria Eduardo Fernandes, Sao Paulo. Many images in the book are in private and public collections in the United States, Brazil and in Europe.

To create his latest body of work, Stan Douglas took on the persona of a fictitious nineteen-seventies photojournalist who documents both the disco scene in New York City and the liberation struggle in the southern African country of Angola. Using period clothing, props, and decor, Douglas staged what he calls “fragmentary costume dramas” from these disparate milieus. “The nineteen-seventies was when everything changed,” Douglas told us. “It was a time of the greatest concentration of wealth and the least amount of productivity. What the Angolan Civil War and disco shared, in their earliest moments, was that they were both utopian spaces destroyed by the intrusion of outsiders.”

Show us your daily life. What affects you and your surroundings. Let us see the world from your point of view.

With “Klick”, the photo competition from the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, we are looking for photos that depict situations that you associate with major issues facing the world today. For the 2011 edition, we are specifically looking for images that reflect your view of human rights or globalization, or pictures of projects, actions and campaigns that bring attention to human rights. The Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum will use these remarkable images to create a photographic world atlas – a visual platform mapping the changes and issues that are taking place in our own backyards.

“Klick” is an initiative from the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum designed to create a visual record of these personal impressions by and for people around the world. The focus is not only on spectacular events, but also on each individual’s own, personal perspective on human rights and globalization.

Send us your photos, take part in the competition and be a part of history.

This is how it works:

1. Choose a photo with people/groups of people

Human rights and globalization always share one focus: people. That’s why we are looking for photos with situations involving people. It doesn’t matter if they are in the foreground or background, one individual or a group – the important thing is that they play a part in the motif you have chosen. With this in mind, choose a photo that you personally feel has a connection to human rights and globalization. Please send us the photos in print quality with a high resolution of at least 300 dpi, so that we will be able to publish them or print them for an exhibit. Fortechnicalreasons,the file size maynot exceed10MB.

2. Write a short description for your photo

This should include the following information:

A description of the photographed scene in English (140 characters max.)

The Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum team will then post the photos and descriptions online. The corresponding map with the photos and their locations will be integrated into the Global Media Forum website at www.dw-gmf.de. The editorial staff from the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum will decide which photos will be published. No claims can be made for unpublished photos. Please be aware that by sending your e-mail, you guarantee that you own the rights to, and are allowing for the unlimited usage and publication of, the submitted photo.

4. Your chance to win!

People from around the world will have the chance to vote online to select the 30 best photos, which will then be part of an exhibit at the 2011 Global Media Forum. Global Media Forum participants and guests will then select three winners from the 30 in the exhibition.

Africa through a lens is a set of thousands of images taken from a broader photographic collection of Foreign and Commonwealth Office images, held at The National Archives. Starting with some incredible early photographs from the 1860s, the images span over 100 years of African history. These images are now available, for the first time, to view online.

The collection was brought about by the request of the Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1869. He asked governors to arrange for the taking of photographs of ‘noteworthy buildings and scenery … together with individuals of various races peculiar to the colony’. Each governor interpreted the task in his own way, which has culminated in this unique and varied collection. The original records include what appear to be personal scrapbooks, official albums, printed pamphlets and even framed photographs and paintings. Some images are official public information shots, others are hand drawn sketches. The number of images for each country also varies, depending on how diligently the request was carried out.

The collection covers just over 20 African countries from the 1860s up until the 1980s. The photographs help illustrate stories from Africa; from the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the late 19th Century through to the independence of the African nations in the 1950s and 1960s. Included are pictures of chiefs, tribesmen and villages, famous landmarks, notable events, schools, farming and wildlife. Several photos show the construction of roads, bridges and harbours, while others show the development of industry, training and education. There are also images of demonstrations and celebrations of independence.

The National Archives and the photographic collection

In 2008 The National Archives acquired the Colonial Office photographic collection from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Following conservation work to ensure the future preservation of the images, the series has been digitised. This means we can provide online access to this stunning and rare collection of images, worldwide. We are beginning this project with Africa.

This website is dedicated to all African photographers who since the 19th century have profoundly contributed to the visual creation of the continent, as well as to all who are interested in the history of African photography.

AFRICAPHOTOGRAPHY.ORG is offering a platform to all those Institutions and individuals who wish to make public their collections of historical photographs from Africa.

AFRICAPHOTOGRAPHY.ORG aims at being the first place on the internet to go for scholars, specialists, and devotees seeking to offer and exchange information on the history of African photography and African historical photographs.

AFRICAPHOTOGRAPHY.ORG connects institutions and individuals working with and interested in African photography worldwide.